coffeebreak!

My mom makes excellent traditional style coffee, the kind you boil coffee, milk, sugar, nutmeg on stovetop. All her friends and siblings 'demand' it when they visit us. My Mama's house is about 10km away from my home in our town and my Mama's used to bike to our home almost every Tuesdays as that was their day off. And as soon as they arrive they would ask my mom to make a cup of coffee for them. One day I asked her to buy Nescafe for me, I think we used to get it even before that but I don't remember much.

Another memory comes to my mind when I start thinking instant coffee. I had gone to one of our acquaintance's home (this was before the 'Telephone Era'). She offered me cup of coffee - 1 tiny cup of milk+1 heaped spoon of Sugar (there is a special spoon that you would get back then called as 'sugar spoon', shaped like clubs in playing cards) + 1/8 or so tsp of coffee! What a concoction! If you want someone to give up drinking coffee this is 'the' solution for that. Thats when i realized my love for strong coffee.

Soon I got bored of boiling the same old coffee in same old style thats when my mom taught me the beaten coffee (pheTaleli coffee). This recipe is combination of both the styles - beaten coffee with touch of nutmeg.

1 Tbsp instant coffee ( i like Nescafe)

1 Tsp sugar

3/4 cup milk (I use 1% milk or Soymilk)

1/4 cup water

dash of nutmeg (just grate whole nutmeg once on small grater)

Start boiling milk and water together in a small vessel. Add grated nutmeg to milk when it warms a bit. Lower the flame and let it boil. While milk is boiling take coffee and sugar in a cup and add 1/2 tsp water to it and start beating with stainless steel spoon. The mixture will change color and will look like light brown 'ready coffee' color. Add half of the boiling milk to this beaten coffee and mix it well. Add rest of the milk and stir well. Nice thin layer of foam will be formed on top.

Tips -

A friend told me this tip - don't boil milk with coffee in it.

You can use just milk and not add water.

If you do not want to have sugar the coffee can be beaten by itself but add 1/4 tsp of water instead of 1/2 tsp.